MOON: Memories Of Other Nexuses
by white raven
Summary: A one-chapter fic. Before his execution, Lucius has dreams of a woman he's never met. COMPLETE


MOON: Memories Of Other Nexuses  
  
Disclaimer: with the exception of the OC, everything here belongs to the author and creator of the Harry Potter series, J.K. Rowling. This fic. is written solely for my entertainment. No money has been, is being, or will be made for this story.  
  
A/N - this is an attempt to conquer the writer's block I am currently experiencing with my other HP fic, Tea with the Black Dragon, and is not tied to that particular story in any way.  
  
A one-shot Lucius/OC fic.  
  
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"Katharine!" The bellow of my own voice jerks me out of a restless sleep and into the bleak, gray environment of my cell. I sit upright, my hand still stretched out to grasp the woman who dances along the edge of my dreams.  
  
My heartbeat thunders in my ears and I can still see the sadness and resignation in her green eyes as she slipped beneath the heaving waves of an angered sea. I run a shaking hand through my hair, disgusted with the nervous quivering in my fingers. How the Ministry and all my enemies would laugh if they could see me now, drenched in sweat and quaking with shock.  
  
Bastards! I didn't bat a single eyelash when they announced my punishment; transference to Azkaban Fortress to receive the Dementor's Kiss. And they never broke me during my interrogation or my trial, though they certainly tried. Never let it be said that an Auror can't match a Death Eater in the talents of torture, both physical and mental. How pathetically hypocritical that the mere change of terms can earn one dealer of pain praise and glory, while the other is reviled, punished and spat upon.  
  
What entertainment my accusers and judges would have if they saw me now, gasping for air after some strange, nebulous dream where the drowning of a nameless woman would bring me howling from sleep with long-dead feelings of despair, loss and desperation. And yet, she wasn't nameless. Her name had been Katharine, and in those eyes I'd seen a woman's love, both soft and fierce for me, and something within me responded.  
  
Bah! I throw off the scratchy wool blanket and stand to pace the small confines of my temporary holding cell, heedless of the icy stones beneath my bare feet and the cold draft that coils around my bare torso. These dreams, they plague me, and have done so for nigh on a decade now. They are always odd, filled with emotion and centered on one woman. Her face and her name changes, but the expression in her eyes remains the same.  
  
The first dream came the night I inadvertently strangled my mistress with her stockings. Really, autoerotic asphyxiation is not all it's cracked up to be. I would have been better off taking my quirt to the woman's backside and then sodomizing her if I wanted to indulge in a little fetish game. A careless mistake on my part and one I didn't repeat. After my house elves disposed of the body and changed the bed linens, I crawled beneath the sheets that no longer smelled of cloying perfume and drifted off to sleep.  
  
Her name was Miriam in that first dream. A statuesque red-haired woman with a ready laugh and a fiery temper, she was the daughter of a merchant and my wife of six years. How do I know this? Who can say? I don't interpret dreams. A foolish and tawdry pastime in my opinion, not even worthy of Muggle interest.  
  
We lived in London, with its soot-blackened skies and foul smelling air. I remember I dreamed of seeing elaborate wigs and clothing on the aristocrats, Miriam's corseted waist and full breasts swelling over the confines of her bodice. Seventeenth century, perhaps? I could only guess.  
  
I don't know through whose eyes and thoughts I saw all of this, but she called me Joshua and I lost her at the age of twenty-two as she labored to bring my third child into the world. "Until the next life, my love" she whispered, and breathed her last. My horror and desolation at her death was overwhelming and I awoke with tears coursing down my cheeks. Even now I shudder with the thought that such a ludicrous dream could reduce me to such a state.  
  
The dreams continued intermittently. They spanned history and time, cultures and social hierarchies, but the one constant was this particular woman and her measuring, loving eyes. She was a lowly concubine of Pharaoh, I a priest of Set. I was beheaded for that particular misdeameanor, she was sold to a Nubian slave trader. She has been a French courtesan named Atenais, a blonde English barmaid called Lizzy and an elegant, dark-haired Spanish dona christened Celina. In each of these dreams, she has been my wife, my mistress or the temporary comfort offered with the price of a pub meal. And she has called me by many names; Joshua, Gabriel, Luis, sir, my love, bastard. She bore me children, gave me the pox and kissed my lips before they separated my head from my shoulders. And never, have I seen this woman in my entire life.  
  
The chill of the dank, little room is finally affecting me and I pull the blanket off my narrow cot, wrapping it around my shoulders. I hate this place. I hate these people, with their small horizons, sanctimonious judgements and dull thoughts. But mostly, I reserve the energy of my hatred for one man. Should Fortune favor me with a means of escaping my prison, I am not certain if my thirst for revenge will overpower my will to survive, for I very much wish to murder that traitorous mongrel, Snape.  
  
The delicious, and frankly, bloody thoughts of the many ways I would execute dear Severus, not to mention the often erotic dream memories of the woman, have left me aroused, aching for the clasp of sweet thighs, willing or otherwise.  
  
I frown as my thoughts are brought back to this most recent dream. Katharine. Her name was Katharine and her eyes had been green in this manifestation. My longtime mistress of more than a dozen years, she was more wife to me than the woman who bore my name and the heir to my estate. And I had been foolish in my need to keep her by my side, taking her to sea with me as I traveled to Greece.  
  
No one expected the storm that bludgeoned our ship into a wreckage of broken timbers and collapsing sails. I hung on desperately to a floating barrel as the swelling waves and pounding rain threatened to drown my cries as I called her name. I saw her once, her face pale and calm before she disappeared into the embrace of the black water, and my voice was filled with rage and anguish.  
  
Whose thoughts are these, I wonder? What strange magic has infiltrated my dreams these many years to bring about these images? My strongest feelings have been reserved for my quest to achieve power. I feel nothing for my foolish wife, save what she is worth in pedigree. And even that is questionable, considering my maggot of a son, Draco. How did I manage to sire such a whelp? Surely, Narcissa is at fault for turning my gene pool into a cess pool. All I can dredge up for him is an overwhelming sense of disgust and disappointment. I almost envy the figment of slumber's imagination. In those lives where he was a father, he doted on his children, loved them to distraction, whether or not they belonged to the mystery woman.  
  
I pace faster in my agitation, shivering earnestly now from the cold. Canting, self-righteous gits! They could have at least left me with my clothes! But no, I stand here in my bare feet, wearing nothing but my underwear and a thin blanket in bloody November, not a warming spell to be found. I rolled my eyes when they stripped me, fearful that I would turn something on my apparel into a portkey. I may have to revise my opinion that idiocy is a disease of Muggles. It seems to run quite rampant among wizards as well.  
  
I shiver again, pacing the narrow confines of my cell. If they're not careful, I will have frozen to death before they can send me off to Azkaban. Tut, tut. Now, wouldn't that be a shame?  
  
The grate of a bar and turning of a lock halt my short wanderings and I wait, curious as to who would visit me now. They have wrung all the information out of me that I can provide. Veritaserum, with a dash of Cruciatus, is very effective in making a person tell secrets. I could see the dark, fluttering edge of a Dementor cloak. The creature guarded my door, and sometimes I can feel it's longing to enter my cell and feed off my emotions. Sorry, old boy. That's reserved for your mates at Azkaban.  
  
The door opens wider and a Ministry lackey, I don't remember his name as I don't really care, enters, motioning to a figure behind him. "He's in here. He'll be no danger to you. However, if there's trouble, just call out. You have twenty minutes to interrogate him, Auror."  
  
Interrogate me? What else could they possibly want to know? I've spilled my guts with nearly everything save my sexual preferences and the fact that I detest trifle. What now?  
  
The Auror, cloaked and hooded, steps into the room, nodding to the official to close the door. The figure is too small and slender to be a man. A woman then and my stomach inadvertently knots with dread. I had learned quickly enough that a female Auror could be ten times more savage and brutal than her male counterpart when it came to administering punishment or seeking information. And those that dealt with me had taken particular pleasure in hearing my cries and howls. They knew my history and exacted revenge for the dead.  
  
I watch the Auror for a moment, my patience quickly wearing thin at her continued silence. "What do you want?" I snarl. "I've told you everything there is to tell. If you're here to indulge in a little play, then let's get on with it so that I may return to my cot for some sleep."  
  
A small gloved hand reaches up to pull back the hood and I gaze curiously upon a petite woman with brown hair and unremarkable features. She wouldn't garner a second glance in a crowd and for that reason alone, would make an excellent candidate for the position she currently holds. I continue to search her face, immediately riveted by her eyes.  
  
They are large and deep blue, with short lashes and they stare at me with unblinking intensity. I know those eyes. I know her. Centuries of memories rush forth from the darkness of my spirit, threatening to overwhelm my conscious thoughts and I stride forward to pull her into my embrace.  
  
She wraps her arms around my shoulders and I kiss her until her lips are bloody and she groans into my mouth with pain and pleasure. All the lives that I have lived with this woman are brought back to me in vivid detail, and I am exuberant and enraged because I have found her again, only to shortly lose her.  
  
There are no sounds in the cell, save the shedding of her clothes and the moans between us. I no longer feel the cold as I fall back to my cot, taking her with me. She strips me bare as well and there is no waiting, no coaxing or erotic play of words as she straddles my hips and lowers herself onto me. I surge upward, gripping her hips and lunging as hard and as deep as I can possibly go, desperate to possess, control and submit myself to the same. My climax is as wrenching as it is satisfying and I pour myself into her eager womb, hoping against hope that I will redeem my blood through another child. Her own orgasm is upon her and she writhes and twists above me, silent in her pleasure so as not to alert the official. Outside, I can hear the agitated swish of Dementor robes.  
  
She collapses onto my chest and I waste no time in flipping her neatly onto her back. I will make twenty minutes last a lifetime. I lower myself onto her small frame, pressing against her soft mound and nudging at her entrance. She laces her fingers through my hair and I see the memories of my children in the cerulean depths of her eyes.  
  
I lean forward and lick the blood from her split lip. "I have no wand to heal this," I whisper against her mouth.  
  
She splays a hand across my chest and her plain face is infinitely sad. "And I have none to heal this."  
  
My hatred swells and I feel my erection pulse to life again. If only we had won! If only Voldemort had succeeded in killing that prat, Potter. If only we had more time. Britain would have been ours, and I would have been a prince among wizards! And I would have, somehow, found this Auror, recognized her for who she was and possessed her. Nothing would have stopped me. Not the Dark Lord, not my son, nothing.  
  
I take her again, and as before, there is no gentleness, no leisure to our coupling, only desperation and a rapacious need to imprint these moments upon each other. There will be no more dreams after this life. I will not lose her to death, but to that which is worse than death. My soul will linger within the foul depths of a Dementor, and I will not be reborn because I will not be allowed to die. I hiss with rage and fear as I plunge into her, feeling the shift of her legs as she wraps them around my waist to embrace me.  
  
My release is as shattering and intense as the first time and I fall forward to crush her into the cot, burying my face in her soft hair. I have no clock, but I know there are only a few minutes remaining and I am reluctant to pull away from the hand that strokes my head with a loving touch.  
  
I roll onto my side and she pulls away, rising to fetch her cloak from the floor. I can see the sheen of my seed on her pale thighs as she walks back to me, crawling onto the cot to spoon against my back and lay the cloak across the two of us.  
  
We are immediately enveloped in scented warmth and I bask in the feel of her soft body cocooning mine. She will leave soon and I will be left to my dismal fate. I silently curse the gods who not only saw fit to turn their backs on me, but to laugh at my ending by presenting me with the one being who I have unknowingly longed for all of my life. Too late. Too late.  
  
I feel her inch upward and rise on one elbow, the rhythmic sound of her breathing gentle in my ear. I keep my eyes closed, wishing only to concentrate on the feel of her without the distraction of seeing my cell. It would be easy to imagine that we lay together, not on this rough, moth- eaten cot, but in my bed at Malfoy Manor.  
  
"What is your name?" I murmur, and smile as she nuzzles the skin behind my ear before answering.  
  
"Deirdre. My name is Deirdre."  
  
How fitting, especially now. One who sorrows. My laughter is short and brittle. "I won't remember this name, Deirdre. Only the Dementor will."  
  
A faint sigh, despairing yet resolute. "I won't let that happen, Lucius."  
  
I never even feel the cut. The blade must be sharper than a St. Mungo scalpel. I only feel a warm wetness, whether tears or blood, or both, I will never know. I can taste iron and the choking sensation of drowning. I fall to my back as she rises above me, dim and hazy to my receding vision. Only her eyes, bright with tears are clear to me.  
  
"Until the next life, my love."  
  
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